The state of the British high street is a perennial lament. Prime Minister Andy Burnham aims to regenerate town centres by curbing betting and vape shops, but the real threat is retail parks. A £20mn retail park south of Derby features an Aldi and Starbucks drive-through. Of the UK’s 407mn sq ft of retail park space, only 1.8 per cent is vacant. The largest, Middlebrook Retail & Leisure Park in Horwich, Bolton, spans 676,000 sq ft.

These outdoor complexes are a departure from high streets and malls. They are places where browsing dreams go to die designed for cars not pedestrians. It is hard to form a community loading your boot at B&Q. Burnham’s instincts are right. Where we spend our money tells us who we are. The German philosopher Walter Benjamin captured the spirit of 19th-century Parisian arcades as worlds in miniature.

What made the high street special was not the stuff we bought but the belonging that comes with a shared sense of place. Retail parks are an emblem of impersonal modern life. Burnham’s ambitions to restore local economies are all the more important.